The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), The Ad Council and GOOD have partnered to launch a challenge that encourages Americans to submit ideas for raising awareness of the crisis in the Horn of Africa. The individual or group that submits the winning idea will be awarded $5,000 from GOOD to implement the proposal.

On Friday, November 18th during International Education Week, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah will launch All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development at USAID Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The partners have committed over $20 million for this challenge to promote childhood literacy around the world.

Baghdad, Iraq (November 7, 2011)- Business is flourishing for Iraq’s strawberry farmers thanks to higher-yield varieties and new growing techniques provided by the U.S. Government through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The success of this program is an example of US-Iraqi cooperation, under the auspices of the Strategic Framework Agreement, to support domestic agricultural production in Iraq.

On Thursday, November 17, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah will travel to Chicago to deliver a speech at The Chicago Council for Global Affairs. Dr. Shah will deliver an address on the Horn of Africa famine and the role of the U.S. government in promoting global food security.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator, delivered the keynote address at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) this morning in San Francisco. He released the following statement:

Andrew M. Herscowitz was sworn in today as the Mission Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development's mission in Quito, Ecuador. Herscowitz comes to Quito from Lima, Peru, where he served as the Supervisory Regional Legal Advisor for Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru from August 2008 until August 2009, when he assumed the role of Acting Deputy Mission Director and later, Acting Mission Director.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will convene youth from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in Casablanca, Morocco, November 14-17, for a conference titled "Our Voices, Our Communities: Emerging Role of Arab Youth in Development."

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced today a new partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Business Civic Leadership Center to establish a Pacific Rim Coordinating Center (PRCC) (http://data.pacificrimnetwork.org). The PRCC will allow for real-time sharing of information and best practices to help communities and governments better prepare for and respond to disasters.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) today pledged $250,000 to help launch a landmark partnership designed to improve the safety of global food supplies. Based on Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) food safety capacity building initiatives, the Global Food Safety Partnership is an innovative public-private partnership focused on improving systems and regulations that lead to better health outcomes, reduced risk of food-borne hazards, expanded participation of farmers and producers into higher value and global food supply chains, and improved food security. With the USAID contribution, the initiative has secured enough pledges to establish a fund to support country-led efforts to produce safe, nutritious foods.

Today, the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) Office of Science and Technology launched the new USAID GeoCenter, an Agency-wide resource to expand and institutionalize the use of geospatial tools and analysis in support of our development goals. The GeoCenter will enhance USAID's capacity in strategic planning and programming, evaluation, and research with the use of the powerful tools of geospatial analysis.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ad Council are announcing today as FWD Day for the Horn of Africa. The goal of the day is simple: 13.3 million FWDs (tweets, posts, shares, etc.) for the 13.3 million people affected by the crisis.

Dr. Shah will deliver a keynote address at the annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). The APLU Annual Meeting has become the premier event for public university leaders to share opinions on emerging topics, gain valuable professional development, and meet colleagues from across the nation. Dr. Shah will highlight USAID's partnership with U.S. universities, and will challenge U.S universities to "push the envelope" on science, technology, and innovation to reduce poverty, hunger, and disease in developing countries.

On November 15, 2011, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Department of State and a coalition of private sector partners, civil society, and other organizations, will formally launch the Public-Private Alliance for Responsible Minerals Trade (pdf, 163kb). The alliance is part of ongoing U.S. efforts to support the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other governments in the Great Lakes Region to break the linkages between the illicit minerals trade and ongoing violence and human rights abuses. It will seek to leverage financial and technical resources from a wide variety of partners to promote responsible minerals trade.

The First Agricultural Trade Fair in South Sudan opened today in Juba, supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The four-day event is designed to showcase South Sudan's products and potential, and bring together national and international entrepreneurs to learn about opportunities in agriculture, fisheries, livestock, and forestry in the world's newest nation.

Denise A. Herbol was sworn in today as the U.S. Agency for International Development's Jamaica Mission Director. A career Senior Foreign Service Officer, Herbol leaves her post as Senior Deputy Mission Director for USAID's mission in Islamabad, Pakistan where she helped manage a staff of more than 240 employees since September 2010.

WHAT

Pneumonia kills 1.4 million children a year, making it the number one cause of child mortality. A study to be published Friday, Nov. 11 in The Lancet medical journal reveals a successful new approach to treating children with severe pneumonia in hard-hit areas. Just in time for World Pneumonia Day, results achieved by Pakistan's "Lady Health Workers" offer new hope for poor and isolated communities around the world. Join a discussion with the study's author, global health experts and high-level officials.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) along with fellow founding partners NASA, the U.S. Department of State, and NIKE, Inc. announced today the ten innovators selected to participate in their LAUNCH: Energy challenge. LAUNCH is a unique initiative formed to identify solutions to the world's most urgent sustainability challenges. The focus of this year's challenge is energy, and the finalists have been chosen for their groundbreaking ideas for the provision of more sustainable energy sources and improved access to energy for both developed and developing world populations.

A U.S. Government delegation, consisting of representatives from USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the U.S. Departments of State, Treasury, Justice and Commerce traveled to El Salvador to sign a Joint Statement of Principles with the Government of El Salvador. The agreement will formally implement the Partnership for Growth initiative between the United States and El Salvador.